


Sherlock Gives Excellent Head: A Trash Meta

by notagarroter (redbuttonhole)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 17:59:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10972473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbuttonhole/pseuds/notagarroter
Summary: What really happened with Janine behind closed doors?





	Sherlock Gives Excellent Head: A Trash Meta

 

Can we talk about this?  I know there were strong emotions around this plot point back when the episode aired, which then got swallowed by the _holy shit what was that­_ of the rest of HLV.  But now that some time has passed, can we talk a bit about Janine?  
  
What did you think when Janine stepped out from behind that door? 

* * *

 

I'd like to tell you what I was thinking, but I wasn't.  Thinking, that is.  If I had any coherent thought at all, it was, "this can't be what it looks like."  We've seen Sherlock flirting with people for cases before (in TBB and ASiB), but always just a teeny bit. He seemed to have pretty well-defined boundaries, and while he was willing to make use of people's attraction to him, we'd never seen it go past batting his eyelashes or touching Irene's wrist.

So I was completely gobsmacked that they went straight to *every* traditional cinematic marker of sex. I could believe that Sherlock would flirt and maybe even take someone out on a date for a case, but SEX? That seemed way beyond the pale.  After making him so totally sexless/gay in TSoT, I couldn't believe they would go so far in the opposite direction.

But of course, I know how tricky these writers are.  I remembered the Sherlolly kiss, after all   So I was sure that within a minute or two, the show would provide me with an explanation that proved no sex happened. Like some other man would come out of the room with Janine, or she would tell John her clothes got wet, or something like that. Anything to show this was not what it looked like.

But that's not what happened.

So then I thought they would do something to show Janine had only spent that one night, when we knew Sherlock wasn't there. For some reason, he was letting her sleep over at his place, in his bed, while he was gone. But she knew where the coffee filters were! So this obviously wasn't a one time thing.  
  
And still I was like, okay, but they are going to explain this. Because no way would they write Sherlock sexing a girl, for any reason... just NO. The fans would riot in the streets and they know it.  
  
So I waited. And then... the bathtub! She joins him in the bath! And there's giggling! And splashing! and STILL I'm thinking, they're going to do *something* that will make all this not what it seems. They're having a bit of fun at John's expense (and the fans'), but no, this really isn't possible. They just wouldn't.   
  
But then Sherlock comes out of the bathroom and John's like, ????????  But *still* no explanation. Sherlock totally straight-faced is like, yup, in a relationship, this is totally legit.   
  
And I just... kept waiting for them to show how it was all a trick, all a misunderstanding, and Sherlock never touched her.   
  
But then there's the kissing.

 

And I just lost it there. I was seriously like, "I don't know what universe I am currently living in. I don't know who I am anymore." I wasn't even like, "the writers fucked up" or "this show jumped the shark." I was questioning MY OWN SELF.   
  
At that point I was so turned around that I think I did actually consider for a moment that the writers just went ahead and made Sherlock sincerely romantically and physically involved with Janine. Because at that point, why the hell not? Up was down, black was white.  Everything I knew was up in the air.

Then this happened:

 

Now, it's not exactly that I was surprised to learn it was all for a case.  If it was going to be anything, it had to be for a case.  But up to this point, I still hadn't let myself believe Sherlock had actually *done* anything with Janine.  I was still convinced it would turn out to be smoke and mirrors.  But by the time we get to the elevator, it seemed undeniable that this was what the show was saying: Sherlock had sex with Janine to get into Magnussen's office.  
  
In that moment, I had to make a decision -- was I going to accept that it was consistent with Sherlock's character to fuck someone for a case? Or was I going to declare this OOC and say the writers screwed up and the show jumped the shark? And in that moment, I made my decision -- I decided, YES, I believe it -- I believe that for *this* case, which is clearly very personal to him, he would do *anything*. This is consistent with my sense of who Sherlock is -- as the man who is married to The Work. Of *course* he would have sex for a case -- that is in fact the very definition of his sexuality that he gave in the first episode. That's what it means to be married to your work.   
  
And I find that brilliant. And all the more brilliant because they dragged me through so many feels on the path there. I think it really shows how distinctly the character has been drawn, that they could shock me so utterly with this revelation, but also how boldly written he was that they could convince me this is NOT out of character -- this is in fact precisely in character.  
\----------------  
Okay, so now I'm going to talk about that scene in the hospital. because I know that 99.9% of fandom reads that scene as saying exactly what I had been looking for through the whole Janine sequence. They believe that in that scene, we are told Sherlock never touched Janine. And in that moment, I guess everyone else breathed a big sigh of relief.  
  
But... well, in the elevator I already made my choice that I was okay with Sherlock having fucked her. Not just okay with it -- I thought it was AMAZING. An incredibly brave choice. So then with the hospital scene... I wasn't okay with just turning around again. And being like, oh okay, I guess that whole relationship was totally platonic after all.  
  
They won me over, they convinced me. I'm not going back to that prelapsarian virginal Sherlock.   
  
So how do I deal with that scene in the hospital? The truth is, it's not as clear as everyone pretends. The conversation... is odd.

JANINE _(softly)_ : You lied to me. You lied and lied.  
SHERLOCK: I exploited the fact of our connection.  
JANINE: When?!  
SHERLOCK: Hmm?  
JANINE: Just once would have been nice.  
SHERLOCK: Oh. _(He looks a little shifty-eyed.)_ I was waiting until we got married.  
JANINE: That was never gonna happen!

No one ever says, "haha good thing we never had sex."  It's very elliptical, and hard to say exactly what they are talking about. I have to believe that was deliberate on the writers' part.   
  
My personal feeling is, they wrote this amazing, ballsy, shocking sequence with Sherlock undeniably pursuing a physical relationship with someone (for a case). Then they chickened out a bit and decided they had to add something deliberately ambiguous so that if people were REALLY upset by this idea, they had a way to pretend it never happened. And most of fandom was happy to accept that.   
  
But I am happy to accept the alternative, which is that yes, they did have a physical relationship, and Sherlock is *just that much* of a scoundrel.  
  
I'm willing to allow that maybe Sherlock never put his penis in her vagina, sure. But to me, sex includes a lot of other stuff, and pretty clearly they were doing SOMETHING in the bathtub that involved not wearing clothes.

Also, some kind of sexual activity between them... it's the only reading that makes sense. Janine is Magnussen's PA. She can't be an idiot -- I don't believe CAM would hire an idiot to be his PA. We know from TSoT that Janine understands Sherlock to be gay or asexual or otherwise not a possible romantic/sexual partner for her. And yet a month later, she is sufficiently convinced that he is sincere in his proposal to her that she opens the door to CAM's office for him.  
  
What changed her mind? Since Janine would expect Sherlock to be professionally interested in CAM (Janine knows he is a detective, after all), and it is Janine's job to keep people like Sherlock away from CAM... Sherlock would have had to have been *very* convincing in his role. Sherlock *has* to have given her some reason to believe their relationship was not a sham.  
  
We know that he fed her lines about how she's "the only one who really knows" him. That was clearly part of it. But Janine is no virginal flower, content to wait until marriage -- that much was clear from TSoT: she makes a sex joke within seconds of meeting Sherlock. 

 

Janine is a red-blooded, sexually aware and active being. She would expect her serious boyfriend to show *some* sexual interest in her, or she would get suspicious.  
  
What I'm getting at here is, Sherlock gave Janine head, and was damn good at it. It's the only reading that makes sense.


End file.
